vs.
Orks
-3 Battlewagons maxed out with shoota boyz/Power Klaw nobz, and one wagon with a Big Mek with Kustom Force Field.
-2 squads of 10 lootas
-a squad of 4 boyz on bikes and 1 nob with power klaw.
Tau
-Commander with iridium armor, Puretide, 2 x Missile Pods, 2 marker drones, Onager Gauntlet
-3x10 man firewarrior squads with target lock markerlight Shas'ui's
-2x7 man pathfinder squads with Shas'uis
-1 Longstrike Railhead (Railgun, disruption pods, auto repair, sensor spines)
-1 Ethereal
-1 Riptide (ion accelerator, SMS, Interceptor, Skyfire)
-3 man broadside unit with HYMP, SMS, 2 Missile drones each, and target lock on two broadsides
-Aegis Defense Line
Warlords
-Big Mek - rolled master of vanguard (+1 run dice) from command traits
-Commander - rolled the skyfire trait from the tau warlord traits. No flyers on the ork side unfortunately.
Deployment:
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| white pieces of paper are the random objectives |
Deployment: Dawn of War
Orks won the roll-off for first turn and chose to go first. Tau failed to seize initiative.
On a roll of a 4 - Night fighting became active turn 1.
Turn 1
Orks: The Biker Boyz rode up to hide behind the shrine of the Aquila. Battlewagons 1 and 2 from the side closest in the picture moved forward 7" at combat speed (due to a red paint job). Battlewagon 3 moved at cruising speed to get out of line of sight of the longstrike-railhead and the riptide. Shoota boyz in battlewagons 1 and 2 killed 1 pathfinder from one squad and 2 pathfinders from the other respectively. Both pathfinder units went to ground due to 10+ wounds coming their way from each wagon. The frag mode kannons from battlewagons 1 and 2 deviated drastically killing nothing - and the big shootas managed to kill 2 firewarriors with snapshots. The third wagon took some snapshots and killed a marker drone in the broadside squad.
Tau: The Ethereal granted an extra pulse shot at half range, and the Riptide novacharged his main weapon. The only movement was the riptide who moved into side armor positioning on the 1st battlewagon. Both pathfinder units attempted to put some markerlights on battlewagons, but due to snapshots from going to ground, didn't get any hits. Longstrike went first - only managing a glancer on the 2nd battlewagon, but due to no markerlights - the KFF saved the shot. Riptide uses his Nova Charged ion accelerator to blast apart battlewagon 1 earning 1st blood. The orks inside take heavy casualties from the explosion. All firewarrior squads shoot at the boyz that come out of the destroyed tank, with the shas'ui's from each squad putting a maker light on loota squad 1. The few boyz remaining in the battlewagon wreckage turn tail and run towards their board edge. The broadside squad uses the marker lights on the 1st loota squad to ignore cover and utterly annihilate the lootas from existence (with a lot of wounds to spare).
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| End of Game Turn 1 |
Turn 2
Orks: Wagons 2 and 3 continue their advance moving combat speed and closing on the Tau army hiding behind the aegis defense line. The Bikers being 20" away from the riptide saw an opportunity to tie the behemoth up in combat - they move 12" in his direction. Boyz in the second battle wagon kill another 2 pathfinders from one squad who again went to ground, bringing them down to 3 members who pass their leadership thanks to the ethereal. A few fire warriors die to frag and big shoota wounds from the battle wagons but not many. Not a lot of tau casualties this round. Seeing the other Loota destruction - the second squad turned it's sights on the broadside squad + commander. The commander was closest, soaking up an ungodly amount of wounds with his 2+ armor save, tanking every single wound without any getting past. The Biker Boyz make the long charge to the riptide, tying him up in combat without any wounds from overwatch. The riptide's 2+ armor deflects all normal attacks, and his 5++ invulnerable protects him from all but 1 wound from the Power Klaw nob biker. The riptide fails to do any in return, losing combat, but passing his morale check.
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| DONKEY PUNCH!!!! |
The commander charges the bikes, donkey punching a Biker into oblivion. The riptide saves all but 1 wound with his 3++ invulnerable. Combat tied and rages on.
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| End of Game Turn 2 |
Orks: Lootas and remaining boyz run off the board. The battlewagons continue their forward roll, relying on the safety of their av14 vehicles to protect the boyz inside. The boyz in battlewagon 2 earn a Victory point killing the 3 man squad of pathfinders (fast attack units worth a VP in the scouring). 1 pathfinder is killed from the other squad, and 5 firewwarriors in the ethereal squad die from the frakk cannon hits and big shootahs. Battlewagon 3 kills another couple firewarriors from multiple squads. All morale checks are passed. In the assault phase - the commander and riptide each kill a bike, but both take a wound in return - tying combat with only the PK nob and a regular biker remaining in combat with the Gundam duo.
Tau: The Ethereal again grants an extra pulse shot, and high tails it to a stronger squad of firewarriors. Broadsides move up 6 inches to get side armor shots on the battlewagon. Longstrike moves up in his hammerhead to get a side armor shot on battlewagon 2. Pathfinders put a couple tokens on battlewagon 3. Longstrike puts his amazing railgun profile to work against the side armor of battlewagon 2. He then proceeds to roll a 1 on his to-hit roll doing absolutely nothing for the third turn in a row. The broadsides use the 2 marker lights on battlewagon 3 to improve their bs 1 snapshots (due to moving forward with heavy weapons) to bs 3. The weight of s7 attacks from the broadsides blows up battlewagon 3 several times over. The boyz in side of battlewagon 3 take large casualties from the explosion along with 2 pathfinders in the rightmost squad. All firewarriors in the vacinity take 3 rapidfire + ethereal shots on the remaning boyz, taking them down to 4, who pass their leadership thanks to a boss pole to the face of one remaining member (leaving them with 3 members). The two remaining bikes in the biker boyz squad fail their fear check for being in base to base with the monstrous creature-riptide, dropping their ws to 1. The commander and Riptide clean up the remaining two bikes and consolidate towards the last remaining battlewagon.
Turn 4:
Orks: Battlewagon 2 deff rolls the pathfinder squad killing all but 1, then smacks into longstrike. This capped longstrike's miserable showing emphatically with a glorious shower of metal and blue goo. The boyz in the deff rolling battlewagon take snap shots at the remaining pathfinder but he saves the one or two wounds that get through by going to ground and being within 8" for the defensive grenades +1 cover. The remaining boyz from battlewagon 3's wreckage also fail to kill the last pathfinder who again makes use of his defensive grenades for a 5+ cover save in the open. That pathfinder is getting promoted to a shas'ui next game.
Tau: The riptide and commander both shoot at side armor of the lone remaining battlewagon doing two HPs worth of damage and some negligible damage result rolls. The broadside unit unloads on the side armor doing the remaining 2 HPs 3 times over (I should have fired these guys first). The wagon does not explode despite all the penetrating hits, so the boyz pile out unscathed. One squad of firewarriors wipes out the 3 remaining boyz in the crater to the right, and the other squads kill a couple boyz from the battlewagon wreckage.
Turn 5:
Orks: The sole remaining boyz squad moves towards the broadside squad, shooting before charging in. Despite taking 9 overwatch deaths on the way in, the remaining boyz tear through the broadside squad, with the PK nob personally instant-deathing all three Broadsides. 3 drones promptly ran off the table. Only 2 boyz died in the exchange. Ironically if the orks had not been so victorious they would have had a better chance. They ended up being stuck in the open with all of the remaining tau fire power staring them straight in the face.
Tau: Tau did what Tau did best and blasted the remaining orks in to oblivion - tabling them and winning the game.
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| Tau turn 5 - not looking good for the remaining 6 boyz and Big Mekk without their battlewagon. |
The Orks capitalized on their AV 14 armor to see (most of) them across the table in short order. This combined with Longstrike's cringe-worthy performance resulted in a wall of AV 14 armor that was very difficult to deal with. The speed of the bikes combined with me forgetting a jump move on the riptide got him into combat turn 2 - which effectively neutralized his damage output after his turn 1 glory. The riptide proved to be near un-killable though, and has to be the best all around unit in the codex in my opinion. If I had played him a little smarter he may have made up for Longstrike's continued whiffs.
In the future I'll be looking for more ways to get anti-AV14 weaponry into my army. I think a TL fusion blaster on the riptide may be slightly more useful than SMS. In our after-game discussion my brother-in-law and I discussed the outcome, and we came to conclusion that the Orks may have benefitted from piling out and assaulting for turn 3. Sure, supporting overwatch from my entire army killed 9 boyz from the one battlewagon when they did come out, but the remaning 11 wiped out a 300 point squad of broadsides - if he had managed some multi-assaults and stayed in combat turn 3, he would also have been protected from all the shooting, and munched through my units with his battlewagons deffrolling un-engaged units.
All in all, he played a close game, and nearly pulled it off. I was very forunate the riptide survived the initial biker combat with only 1 wound! The riptide surely would have run off the table otherwise and the remaining bikes would have crashed in to my backfield or provided a huge distraction while the battlewagons advanced unscathed. I put the victory solely on the riptide's durability and the donkey-punching, kung fu commander.
The MVP of the match doesn't go to them however, it goes to the broadsides - with 2 lootah squads, 2 battlewagons, and a collection of boyz under their belt, they put out an INSANE amount of damage. Sure they folded like a wet piece of tissue paper in combat, but they killed half of the ork army by themselves. The extra shots from the ethreal were nice, and the leadership 10 - 12" bubble was fantastic. Despite no save and only two T3 wounds, his IC status allowed him to LO,S everything that came his way. I played the pathfinders forward and aggressive - that combined with them being worth victory points made them the primary focus of the ork army for the first 2 turns. They didn't put out many marker lights, but they soaked up so much firepower they were FAR from useless. Longstrike was disappointing, but only due to very unlucky rolling.
Thanks for sticking all the way through this in-depth bat rep! I hope you enjoyed it. It was a great game, showcasing the sheer firepower of the Tau, and the speed and durability of AV14 battlewagons.
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